Pennsylvania's clean drinking water may be in jeopardy without regulations

Drinking water could become tainted if more regulations on Marcellus Shale drilling are not implemented.

Clean water is something most Americans take for granted. When we turn on the tap, we expect a steady flow of clean water at whatever temperature we have indicated on the faucet dial.

Pennsylvania can no longer take drinking water for granted. The state faces a new threat to our water supply in the form of Marcellus Shale gas drilling. The process to extract the gas is called hydraulic fracturing, and as the name implies, it is hugely water intensive.

Fracturing has been around for a long time, but Marcellus drilling requires deep wells and even more water usage to break the shale and force the gas up.

The problem isn’t so much the initial quantity of the water. Pennsylvania is blessed with an abundance of fresh water. The issue is all the wastewater after it has been through this intensive industrial process.

At the moment, the resulting wastewater from operating Marcellus Shale wells is treated for basic contamination and then released back into the state’s streams and rivers.

But wastewater from Marcellus Shale isn’t normal. It often contains higher than average “total dissolved solids,” some of which are toxic in high concentrations and can lead to conditions such as bladder cancer.

The state must set regulations on total dissolved solids to protect our drinking water.

Some in the gas industry oppose harsher water regulations as draconian and “anti-competitive.” They argue that these solvents dilute away in the rivers.

That sounds nice, but there’s a basic math problem here. Our streams, while numerous, are not enough to dilute the quantities of water expected when Marcellus Shale drilling is up and running.

It was actually two natural gas drilling companies (Atlas and Range) that approached the Department of Environmental Protection and warned that if Marcellus Shale hydraulic fracturing explodes in number, then stream dilution is not going to be enough. Several rivers and streams are likely not to make the federal drinking water acceptability threshold.

In other words, our drinking water could become tainted.

The state already has experienced this once in the Monongahela River in 2008. That year, 17 water intake points from Pittsburgh to West Virginia were deemed unsafe from elevated bromide solvent levels (the cause was a number of factors of which gas drilling is thought to be one). We were behind the curve in solving the problem, and we do not want to be there again.

New “wastewater treatment requirements” have been proposed by DEP Secretary John Hanger. The easily accessible 10-page document is up on the department’s Web site for public review through Feb. 12. If enacted, the new rules would make Pennsylvania one of the leaders in this area.

Before anyone balks, let’s remember that Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale has been widely projected to be the largest shale gas bed in the world, outstripping even the Barnett Shale in Texas.

The regulations set new levels of acceptability. For the first time, all companies would have to treat the wastewater for total dissolved solvents.

For bottom-line types, it boils down to this: Companies would have to pay slightly more to clean the wastewater before it goes back into Pennsylvania’s waterways. DEP estimates no more than 25 cents per gallon.